The Art Institute of Chicago’s latest addition to its North Garden is a bronze beauty with Windy City roots.
Titled “Sharifa,” the approximately 9-foot sculpture was created by internationally renowned artist and Chicago native Simone Leigh. Positioned against a wall, the sleek, coffee-colored statue depicts a woman deep in thought. Her breasts and long arms are bare, while an abstract, floor-length dress covers the rest of her body — except for one shoe peeking out.
Visitors can take in the towering figure in the garden, located at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, when it re-opens during the summer months.
Installed in October, "Sharifa” is the first new art work to be added to the outdoor space since 2018. Among the other sculptures, it is the only one by a living artist, and the only one by a Chicago artist. A portrait of writer Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Leigh’s sculpture is yet another expression of the artist’s passion for centering the Black female experience. Its notable placement at the Art Institute is a celebration of the city’s world-class talent, and a meaningful achievement for Leigh, who is in her late 50s, and now living in New York.
“The Art Institute of Chicago was always a significant place for me to visit while growing up in Chicago,” Leigh wrote in an e-mailed statement to the Sun-Times. “To have 'Sharifa' installed here is a great honor and marks a special moment for me. The placement of 'Sharifa' in the North Garden is one of the most beautiful and powerful installations of my work, and I am so proud to have the sculpture on view in my hometown.”
The Art Institute acquired the piece following its showing at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
“We wanted to give this Chicago artist a really prominent position at the museum and also make sure that the campus, as much as the collection, is mirroring our city and our time,” said Gaimpaolo Bianconi, associate curator for modern and contemporary art at the Art Institute. “So, putting this really prominent figure by this incredible American artist with roots in Chicago in such a public space is a way of doing that.”
Known for her sculptures, videos and installations, Leigh creates work that interrogates “Black female-identified subjectivity,” according to Matthew Marks Gallery, which represents the artist. She often engages the idea of the vessel, creating sculptures that combine the female form with jugs, jars and other containers.
Leigh was inspired to create “Sharifa” while working on a video project for an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. Participants included Rhodes-Pitts, whose 2011 book “Harlem Is Nowhere" charts the history of the iconic neighborhood. Leigh asked the writer and others to remember and demonstrate their body position during childbirth. The sculpture captures Rhodes-Pitts as she pondered the directive.
“Sharifa” was one of nine sculptures Leigh designed for “Sovereignty,” her exhibition presented in the American Pavilion establishing her as the first Black woman to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. She also covered the building with a thatched roof and wooden beams, transforming the Jeffersonian design into a structure resembling African architecture.
Bianconi recalls seeing “Sharifa” for the first time in Venice.
“The work just had a volume and a presence and a power that was undeniable,” he said. “It makes perfect sense to me that it would be in a museum's collection, just because of the strength of its image and form.”
The Art Institute also owns another piece by Leigh. Titled “Dunham,” the sculpture combines a ceramic female figure with a dome-shaped raffia skirt. It investigates the connection between the Black female body and the home or dwelling. It also pays homage to famed Chicago dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham. It can currently be seen in the museum’s exhibition “Project a Black Planet,” on view through March 30.
“Leigh’s sculptures give form to the history, knowledge and experience that a body can hold,” Bianconi wrote in a description of the artist’s work.
Born in 1967, Leigh studied at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and began exhibiting in the early 2000s. She has had one-person shows at the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and Tate Modern in London, to name just a few venues.
In addition to creating her own show at the 2022 Venice Biennale, she took part in the event’s central exhibition, “The Milk of Dreams,” winning the Golden Lion for Best Participant. She also convened a group of artists, academics and activists for a three-day symposium, “Loophole of Retreat: Venice.”
“She is interested in the collective and the Black intellectual tradition,” Bianconi said. “She is an incredible sculptor, but she's also a person who brings people together and creates histories and spaces for conversation.”
Bianconi also emphasized the far-reaching impact of Leigh's art.
“I think that Simone Leigh is one of the most important artists working in the United States today,” he said. “Every time I see her work, I'm totally enraptured and thrilled and delighted, and I hope to see much more of it.”
